Back By Popular Demand
fter years off letters, e-mail, and calls, rabid fans finally convinced Sierra to conclude the epic Quest for Glory series with QFG V: Dragon Fire. Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire www.sierra.com/qg5 j Preferred System Requirements Matt*. 16 Ml UN. WIN95/lbcfVC VrilZ, 16MB RAM 4i CO-RON Format WIN95/MAC(PPC)C0 Available: Holiday 33C tf Price $49.95 (Order *70325) 1-800-757-7707 By Nancy King THE TIME a game like Quest for (Uory V: Dragon Fire makes it to your computer, you're playing a polished product with a solid marketing plan and full company support behind it. What you're not privy to is any ot the tough and sometimes agonizing choices that have to be made, the dogged determination of thousands of fans, and the intense work it takes to actually produce a game that won't disappoint rabid fans who are hungry for another winner. Well, in true InterAction style, we're giving you a rare inside peek at how Dragon Fire has made the journey from concept into full-tilt production. With an intended release date of Holiday 1997, QFG series fans across the U.S. and the world are gearing up for one of the most anticipated releases of the year. Eight Years and Four Titles Later l In 1989, Lori and Corey Cole created for Sierra the first title in the new QFG series, So You Want to Be a lh r<> Heralded as **» breakthrough in adven ture game design" by Compute magazine, QFG I was the perfect combina tion of fantasy adventure and role-playing games. Interaction Magazine Fa i_ l 19 9 7 "We wanted to share the drama, the excitement, and the fun of being a real hero," explains Dragon Fire co-designer Lori Cole. QFG I was an immediate suc cess. Fans were hooked. They eagerly awaited the release of the next three games. Trial by Fire, Wages of War, and Shadows of Darkness. What they didn't know was Sierra had decided to make Shadows of Darkness the last game in the series. By the time Shadows of Darkness was released in 1993, the software industry and Sierra were going through some major changes. By March 1994, Sierra had moved its corporate offices up to Bellevue, Washington, and PCs were exploding with new technology. There were faster machines with greater memory, which opened up new avenues for designers and developers. Finally, technology was able to convert some of the more brilliant ideas coming from the imaginations of great storytellers (like Lori and Corey) into computer games. The gaming industry took a whole new direction Dragon Fire just didn't make it on Sierra's list of future games. Listening to Our Fans End of story? Not quite. For the past two years, fans have persistently sent Ken Williams (Sierra co-founder) and Craig Alexander (general manager of Sierra Publishing in Oakhurst. California) e-mail and letters, and pub licly pleaded with them through this publication, to resurrect the QFG series with one final game. As Alexander puts it. "Interaction with Sierra's customers definitely has an impact on development deci sions. Dragon Fire never would have happened had it not been for the thousands of fans demanding Quest for Glory s return." One example is fan Carl Kothrnan. He went so far as to say in his e-mail, "I have locked the door to my room, and I won't come out. The Internet is my only connection to the outside world, and 1 won't come out of my room until QFG V comes out and my dad buys it for me!" (Editor's Note: Hey, Carl! If a copy of this article reaches you in your self-imposed seclusion—it's OK to come out now.) Getting Back to Work The first thing Alexander did, after getting the green light from Ken Williams to pro duce this game, was contact the Coles. Over lunch he proposed the idea of creating one last QFG game. He told them the fans were clamoring for It. "I also offered Lori a budget that surpassed all of the first four QFG games combined," Alexander explains. That immediately sold Lori on the idea, but unfortunately Corey had other commitments. "From the beginning our goal was to make Dragon Fire the pin nacle of this phenomenally suc cessful series," Alexander stresses. "When Craig approached me with the opportunity to make Dragon Fire, I was thrilled," Lori Cole says. "I really wanted to make this game since I start ed the series. From the beginning, these games had been designed like a book trilogy. The game story flows from one Quest for Glory to the next. You always play the same char acter, each time building his abilities and skills, making new friends and enemies, and developing the overall plot. We've taken the Hero from a beginning-level graduate of the Correspondence School for Heroes to a seasoned adventurer in the course of Quest for Glory IV (Shadows of Darkness)." One of the great things about this series is you don't have to start with game one. Bach game is a self-contained story and you learn as you go. Novice players and die hard gamers have found something to enjoy in each one, and it will be the same for Dragon Fire. This is a series, and along the way characters spoke of Silmaria and in the manuals we included Silmaria as an address," Lori continues. "Finally, in Dragon Fire, the hero has the opportu nity to become King of Silmaria. This is a prize he deserves for all the good things he has done in the games and one he will certainly earn by the end of Dragon Fire. After all, how many times can one person save the world?" Team Design "Corey and I designed the first four games of the Quest for Glory series in solitude," Lori says. "We tried new things in each new game, and never knew whether they were good or bad ideas until after ward. From the beginning, our fans let us know what worked and what didn't work. So, the game series continu ally evolved but slowly and by trial and error "This time, we openly asked fans for ideas about what they * * a Radical 360De^ree change The latest technology featured in Dragon Fire are voxels (short for vol ume pixels). The characters are creat ed using voxels, which allows for an extremely high polygon count (for example, the hero in Dragon Fire alone uses 10,000 polygons). A little confused? That's OK. The voxels and polygon counts determine the com plexity of the character's drawing and how realistic each one looks. Unlike traditional 2D characters, voxels have complete freedom of movement. They can be viewed from any direction (top, bottom, and 360 degrees around) and can be scaled large or small as they approach the camera. And all this means Dragon Fire is a game that's more fun to look at and play. wanted in Dragon Fire. Quest for Glory fans are great. They are all over the world, and they all care very much about what happens next in the series. You embark on a quest path of entwined heroic feats. Interaction Magazine Fa l l 19 9 7 They have e-mailed both me and Terry Robinson, my co-designer on this game, telling us what they like or dislike from what we have put up on the website. I've actually taken a character known as Punny Bones out of the game because of fan input. There were sever al negative comments, and I thought they were important enough to pull him, and I really like the character. I believe it's important to listen to what my fans have to say and try to satisfy them. Without fans, I wouldn't be work ing on Dragon Fire. Because of them, I can continue to create great games. "But that's not the end of Punny Bones," Lori continues. "We're planning an expansion CD for Dragon Fire (It should be released in 1998). Gamers will have to already own Dragon Fire to continue the story. It will have new adventures in the settings of Silmaria. "If you win Dragon Fire and become king, you will play the expansion game as the king. If you married someone in Dragon Fire, you will have a wife in the expansion game. And I'm putting Punny Bones back in the expansion disk, because other fans have formed a Punny Bones fan club and, like me, really like the character." Multiplayer Mayhem Besides fan input, Lori Cole and Terry Robinson decided Dragon Fire had to be a multiplayer game. "Multiplayer mode is the future of computer games, and the future is now when you play Dragon Fire" Lori stresses. "Most com puter games are very limited in their ability to let the player do things. They can only adapt so much to the player. "That's not true with Dragon Fire. Every time you play the game with someone new, you have a totally differ ent experience. So whether you play this game with a friend sitting in the same room with you with a second computer hooked up directly to yours, or play your pen pal from Portugal, Dragon Fire will be different every time," Lori states with a smile. So, the last chapter is written in the popular Quest for Glory saga—a fitting conclusion to one of the most popular gaming software titles ever created. Because fans wouldn't settle for anything less and showed their support and loyalty with letters and IS QfCj VI NeKt? When asked about QFG VI, Lori was blunt. "I am certain that the fans will want another game in this series. However, I intend that the next series will start out with someone different. 'I've put some thought into it and I'm sure you will be able to have your choice of heroes. Maybe you'll play the son or daughter of the hero from Dragon Fire. Maybe you will play someone completely different, in an entirely new land with new skills and spells. I don't know right now, because I intend to let the fans deter mine the next path for the game. I'll let them contact me with their opin ions on the matter, and well let them tell us what would be the most fun. All in all, the quest continues one way or another." e-mail, Dragon Fire became a game. This project wasn't without its share of headaches, trials, and tribulations. That's alt part of the creative process. What's different about it is fans had a say in what it would be. It also opened a new avenue in the world of game design. Fan input before and during the process has changed how we do business—for the better, if online Design forum Check out the Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire online design forum at www.sierrQ.com/'qg$/'. Category:Articles